Good lord I dont know whether to laugh or cry

Billy Batz · Post by **Billy Batz** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 4:04 pm

Front page of the Daily News today in a grade school in Philly they found a couple second graders dealing crack to the rest of the class.

Well last year it was third graders having sex in class. This year theyre doign speed. So I have to ask. Why the hell couldnt I have been in grade school now instead of 15 years ago!

JK

dynaman · Post by **dynaman** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 5:19 pm

Dan, didn't you know that's an official program that was initially spearheaded here in Detroit a couple of years ago? Since Bush refuses to fund his own No Child Left Behind program our schools have resorted to passing out crack and speed so our children can "keep up" with the Asians and Indians. Unfortunately, violence and addiction have been some nasty side effects. What a sick world.

Sportsterguy · Post by **Sportsterguy** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 8:04 pm

It's all because, parents are not accepting the responsibility for properly raising their children, and in the public schools it's not politically correct to correct a child when they get out of line. Teachers have no control over the class room. I started my kids in parochial schools, moved to public, and promptly moved them back to parochial schools. The parents that showed up at public school parent teacher meetings tended to complain about excessive amounts of home work (maybe 1 hour tops per night) and touchy feely crap about not disciplining kids when they are doing something wrong. It's a damn shame that on top of the taxes that you pay to provide for public education you have to fork out money for private school for you kids to get a decent education. Hell, I look at where the money goes in public education; they spend money on having day care facilities on the school grounds for all the girls that are having babies at 14 and 15 and on transportation to bus kids across town 20 miles each way to maintain a racially balanced formula. All the while, when the kids graduate high school, they don't have enough sense to count change. It' no damn wonder that jobs are leaving this country. The kids that we are turning out of public schools do not have the skills needed to compete in a global economy.

Necrovore · Post by **Necrovore** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 11:35 pm

You also forgot the $175k+ salaries that the administration heads of school districts are making these days. Oh yeah they also get trasportation allotments(yes they get new cars every 4 years that is theirs to keep if they move on), travel allotments, attire allotmets. and people wonder where all the money goes to schools every year, and why the hands are always out asking for more......

I read an article earlier this year where it said that the education a person gets in a US public school once they aquire their bachelors degree is roughly equivalent to the amount of education that a person graduating highschool got in the 50's.

marshman · Post by **marshman** » Thu Mar 02, 2006 10:35 am

Sportsterguy has it nailed...I'm a substitute teacher and I see it all the time. Kids caught red-handed doing something bad, their parents come in and say "Not MY Johnny!!!" and use word like 'prejudice' and 'lawyer' until the administration is forced to cave for fear of lawsuits. The kids know this is the case and will push the envelope at EVERY opportunity. It's simple--eventually the American school system will be recognized as a total failure, and the turning point will have been "No Child Left Behind". Then, we can get an overhaul. Don't get me wrong, I was a bad seed in school, but I knew if I got caught, I was gonna catch hell from the VP and that would pale compared to what was coming when I got home.

It seems to me that the typical High School senior is about where I was in 9th grade in most aspects, and I graduated in '86. I can't imagine how they survive in college, unless college has gone downhill to match.

Bussing was a poor idea used to make a good point. Now that the schools pretty much suck universally, it should be re-addressed. Bussing kids to PRIVATE/PAROCHIAL schools with my tax dollars really gets my goat. If you don't like the public school , that's cool, it's your choice, but don't expect for the rest of us to pay to get your kids there.

My old school district recently built a multi-million dollar football facility for a football program less than 5 years old. But virtually the entire English dept. is working in trailers. Howzzat work?

School is no longer a place to send your kids to learn. It's a babysitting serviceprovided by the state and subsidized by our tax dollars.

Sorry, sore spot for me.

lp1987x · Post by **lp1987x** » Thu Mar 02, 2006 11:07 am

This is one of the many reasons my kids are in a Virtual public school. We had my oldest daughter in public school for 4 years and finally pulled her after various problems including unwanted sexual contact by other students and teachers either teaching to the damn proficiency tests without teaching the basics or not wanting to teach at all.

Unlike traditional home schooling, Virtual schools actually supply all course materials and a computer and require students to complete assignments on time and then mail them to an actual teacher to grade. All tests and quizzes are done online. Plus, it allows my kids to learn without peer pressure, fads, drugs, weapons, etc that are normally found in brick-and-mortar schools. They have definitely prospered from this environment.

Country Boy Shane · Post by **Country Boy Shane** » Thu Mar 02, 2006 11:23 am

Just shows how the new generation are a bunch of losers. Please blame their retarded parets too!

Bow · Post by **Bow** » Thu Mar 02, 2006 11:26 am

lp1987x wrote: teaching to the damn proficiency tests without teaching the basics or not wanting to teach at all.

My mother is a Teacher's Aide here in the Houston area...

She says that is all they teach.. just pass the proficiency tests, the school look better when students score high on them, the school district gets more money....

Country Boy Shane · Post by **Country Boy Shane** » Thu Mar 02, 2006 11:30 am

It always boils down to a fucker making his money!

lp1987x · Post by **lp1987x** » Thu Mar 02, 2006 11:42 am

My mother is a Teacher's Aide here in the Houston area...

She says that is all they teach.. just pass the proficiency tests, the school look better when students score high on them, the school district gets more money....

Exactly. After 4 years in public school, my daughter couldn't even add single digit numbers without using her fingers but yet she was put in the Advanced Math class by her teachers. The only basic math she learned was taught at home. I harped on her for 4 years to stop using her fingers and memorize her math facts but she insisted the teachers encouraged using counting tools i.e. fingers, blocks, etc as long as they had the correct answers and I confirmed this with her teachers.

marshman · Post by **marshman** » Thu Mar 02, 2006 2:10 pm

One of the core principles of No Child Left Behind is that schools whose children preform poorly on proficiency tests have their funding reduced and schools whose students perform better on the same tests have their funding increased. Which is the opposite of what oughtta happen.

Since teachers can no longer count on parents to force kids to do their homework, they can no longer assume that their students will learn their times tables and ABCs on their own time. Therefore, teachers must spend extra time working on said topics in school, rather than advancing on to further topics. The entire class must wait until the slowest learner has learned the material, by which time most of the faster kids are trying to find a way to amuse themselves while the teacher reviews addition for the 23rd time.

The kids aren't helping themselves much, either. Most of them think they should get Friday as a free-chat-with-their-buddy day just for bothering to show up. And they shouldn't have to do anything on Monday, cause they had such a hard weekend. I have actually talked to young ladies in the school that get up at 5:30 in the morning to get ready to catch a 7:15 bus. They have to take showers, do make-up, get their hair together...as if Brad Pitt or James Cameron might show up looking for a mate/star. I understand the desire to be 'grown-up', but it's killing their stamina for school.

My wife is a corporate training instructor, and we've noticed that the problem is the same with school kids as it is with the new (read: young) kids that have just graduated college to join the working world: The burden of learning has been taken off of the learner and placed completely on the teacher/instructor. If a student/employee fails to acquire the skills presented to them, they push the blame back on the teacher, and the schools (which are ultimately run by the parents), and the employers (which are ultimately driven by their need to maintain workers) take their side. With no concern at all for the fact that the kid slept through class that day.

Leif_Bodnarchuk · Post by **Leif_Bodnarchuk** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 11:01 am

Our grandparents had a good idea when they decided to work hard so that we wouldn't have to - unfortunately, we have taken this on boared as well and almost to extremes.

We are homogenizing and sterilising our kids to the point where they don't know how to discriminate between right and wrong because we are afraid to let them know about the dangers of the word for fear of offending someone.

I have a three year old and even I catch myself still putting his socks on for him! It's very petty, but I think of it like this - it is convenient for me to get him out the door quicker, but if we delay and take away their most basic life skills now, they are going to suffer and be totally eaten up by the few of us left who are actually competitive and intelligent.

If the kids cry because they can't get it right the first time and we just do it for them, at what point do we stand back and say "you're on your own?" They have to go out on their own eventually.

(This isn't all about socks, it just illustrates a point.)

I distinctly remember struggling with homework, dealing with bullies (not the fucked-up retarded crack dealers of today mind you) and generally kinda fighting my way to where I am because my parents made damn sure I wasn't handed everything on a platter.

It sounds kinda old-school (NO I didn't walk to school in 4 feet of snow with my feet wrapped in sandpaper) but you have to give your kids a taste of what life is really like - earlier rather than later or else they'll be completely out of their depth.

And for God's sake, teach them math and grammar!!!!!!!!!!!!

Flames1950 · Post by **Flames1950** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 12:08 pm

Sounds like it's a good thing my son can already read his numbers and letters and count and such at twenty months, I guess the school won't teach it to him..........

Necrovore · Post by **Necrovore** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 1:11 pm

Get this... I just went through my son's "agenda" for this past week in school. I'll give an example of his reading class' syllabus. 7 group projects covering topics to be given by teacher. No reading list for the year.

Uh this is a reading class is it not? I asked my son where is his reading list, he said he had none. Do you guys read stories in class? No. So why are you in a reading class? Everyone has to take it Dad. It is nothing more then a class to put students into so that the school gets more tax dollars.

My kids are so reading inept that I literally have to yell at them to get them to crack a book. Any book. They act like its a punishment, I guess it hurts their self esteem to have to learn how to do something that will help them later in life.

Leif_Bodnarchuk · Post by **Leif_Bodnarchuk** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 1:42 pm

Get your son a Hustler and tell him to read the letters.

I guarantee you'll see improvement!

You may also get some odd questions, but hey - you're talkin'!